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The criticism of the content of AB is simple: the messages cannot be
implemented by substantial parts of the population, they are not geared
at real life. Abstinence is not an option for many (poor) women and
being faithful does not protect against HIV/AIDS infection. The "be
faithful" message is especially disturbing. According to research,
serial monogamy is what many young people in Africa see as desirable in
terms of relationships. But being faithful only makes sense with regards
to HIV/AIDS if you stay faithful to your first sexual partner for the
rest of your life, being his/her first and only sexual partner as well,
after having been tested and proven to both be negative. Few people in
Africa or elsewhere will spontaneously mention that model as their ideal
and even fewer will live accordingly. In a recent survey among 15-24
year olds in Malawi, 80% of the respondents say they are not at risk of
contracting HIV/AIDS, some of them because they are not having sex at
the!
moment, but a substantial part say they are not at risk because they
are faithful to their sexual partner. Being faithful is constantly
mentioned in a context of HIV/AIDS prevention and even if the
information given is correct, the ABC approach often connects being
faithful to being protected against HIV/AIDS.
Many of the well intending ABC materials do pay attention to condoms,
but somehow they manage to draw a picture of using condoms as a very
exotic not to say alien habit, only fit for those who lack the self
control and values to stay safe within A and B. And man, a lot can go
wrong with condoms according to these manuals. Probably that is why they
never reveal where you can get them. Or teach girls how to negotiate the
use of condoms (they are endlessly lectured on how to say "no" instead).
Many educators and communicators in Africa and elsewhere, precisely
because ABC has the power of the purse, agreed and implemented the ABC
approach. But from a communication point of view there is a lot more
wrong with ABC than the content of the messages alone. It is ineffective
from a communication perspective. And ABC can lead to effects that would
be comical if only the consequences were less tragic.
ABC yells one-liner slogans at people pretending to tackle very
complicated, deeply personal and highly sensitive issues in a way that
is almost offensive. If the ABC approach is anything, it is loud and
omnipresent. I belong to none of the many target groups for HIV/AIDS
prevention communication and I live in backwater Blantyre (Malawi), but
I have been monitoring for a week and it turns out that on an average
day (reading the newspapers, listening to the radio, going to work,
walking in town, going to a bar, watching some TV), I receive at least
ten HIV/AIDS messages. Or, to be more precise, I receive nine
fear-inducing, sex-discouraging messages, and one condom promotion
message (billboards from a South Africa based condom factory read:
"Studded for more pleasure").
By trying to take into account gender issues or the different positions
of men and women with regards to HIV/AIDS, ABC education is revitalising
double moral standards. Unlike South Africa, where virginity (and
virginity tests) all of a sudden are portrayed as part and parcel of
African authentic culture, virginity is not a common concept in Malawi.
More than half of the girls in a recent survey had never heard of it.
[3] The ABC approach will change that one too. In a sort of strange side
effect of the abstinence mantra, manuals on sex education linger on
virginity for pages. While virginity might seem a desirable state of
being to some people, it is as useful in HIV/AIDS prevention as advising
people to stay inside in order to reduce traffic accidents. Full blown
double standards go unchallenged in the virginity discourse, since
virgins are, we all know this, female.
The same double standards are resulting in hilarious communication
hazards. One of the many NGOs here that were circulating messages on the
occasion of World AIDS Day published two posters here. One portraying
women in a village, pouring maize, the other portraying men drinking
beer and playing trick track (ok, let's not split hairs here). The theme
of World Aids Day being Keeping the Promise, the women on the poster
say: "I promise to be mutually faithful", the men promise "to reduce the
number of my sexual partners". Apart from the fact that it is hard to
imagine how an individual can promise to be mutual, note that these
promises, when kept, will lead to infection indeed.
Double standards, these days reinforced by ABC communication, heavily
blind common sense. A 1997 Democratic Health Survey of Nicaragua states,
without raising an eyebrow, that 55% of the boys between 15 and 19 are
sexually active, while only 3% of girls in the same age group are. [4]
Must be very busy, those 3%. Though there has not been a DHS survey in
Malawi for some time, figures for Southern African countries are
similar. Along the same lines, in the public discourse it is widely
assumed and constantly communicated that men are having multiple sexual
partners while women get infected by being faithful to unfaithful
husbands. Might very well be, but with whom are these men having sex?
Must be with unmarried women who are all abstaining from sex till
marriage.
One might argue that all this lying about the reality of people's sexual
life is rather innocent and of all times, but especially in the light of
HIV/AIDS prevention it is a serious obstacle. We are in dire need of
reliable information on what people do and don't, what they feel and
think. Without that information we will not be able to develop
prevention messages that can and will be implemented in real life.
Instead of learning how to communicate meaningfully, honestly and openly
about sexuality, ABC role-models, teaches and engrains shame, lying and
useless values.
The art of separating the discourse from the reality has risen to high
heights, both because the ABC messages have little to do with real life
and because ABC communication in itself is full of hidden and not so
hidden moral messages on what sexuality should be (and not on what
sexuality actually is). Recent research shows once again that Malawians
are well informed on HIV/AIDS. Young people know about AIDS, they even
can reproduce words like abstinence and being faithful and they do not
change behaviour. 84% of 15-24 year olds are sexually active, 54% of men
did not use a condom in their last sexual encounter, 73% of the women
did not use a condom in their last sexual encounter. 70% of youths did
not use a condom at sexual debut. Although using the words abstinence
and being faithful, many of them indicate they are involved in
occasional sex. [3] Clearly the messages received by these young people
are being filed somewhere, they are being able to repeat them and to fit
into!
the discourse, it just does not occur to them to actually practice what
they are saying. But maybe that should not surprise us, knowing that
teachers deliver the ABC messages to them in a context where sexual
abuse by the very same teachers is widespread.
Not all of the distorted discourse on sexuality can be assigned to the
effects of ABC of course, but ABC does nothing to clear the air, to
encourage open and frank discussion on the issues. Instead, it imposes
rules on people that many people have no intention or possibility to
obey.
AIDS is in Africa to stay, even if the epidemic stems tomorrow, AIDS
will be a fact of life for generations to come. Since this became
obvious, stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS is
getting placed higher on the agenda. Fighting the virus within an ABC
context almost inevitably means condemning sexuality or at least a lot
of sexuality (everything before, after or outside marriage, to be
precise). By suggesting that faithful people cannot contract HIV/AIDS,
the conclusion that a person infected must be a person with bad sexual
practices and morals is almost logical. To say the least, ABC does
nothing to fight stigma and discrimination. If you look at communication
coming from organisations trying to improve the quality of life of
people living with HIV/AIDS which are using ABC in their prevention
efforts (the case with the vast majority of the many faith-based
organisations active in this field), you can see how difficult it is to
reconcile the messages. !
It goes like this: to get HIV/AIDS you have to be a very bad person but
once you have it you deserve all the care and support you need. In
addition, efforts to "justify" the safeguarding of human rights of
people living with HIV/AIDS produce a constant stream of testimonies of
two top models of "innocent" HIV/AIDS survivors featuring on the one
hand the raped girl and on the other, the faithful wife.
In an advertisement for a contest, young Malawians were asked to write
songs with the chorus starting: "A real woman waits..." (you could also
write a song on "A real man waits..." but that did not seem to inspire
anyone, no entrees received). Somehow I am sure the winning song will
not read "A real woman waits 'till the condom is in place".
Joke van Kampen
Blantyre, December 2005
joke@malawi.net
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